Mobile Awards what are they good for?

mobiThinking loves awards – not for the back slapping and posh nosh – but for the platter of excellent mobile campaigns/services that each award ceremony serves up. We are addicted to case studies, especially the slick bite-sized videos that agencies submit with their entries, and it is from these that we learn what is possible, what gets results and what brands, publishers and agencies are achieving it. For great video case studies, see these profiles of Ogilvy & Mather; Mobile Dreams Factory and BBH.

The great mobile showcase

Industry awards play a critical role in proving to the business world what mobile can deliver for them, as well as highlighting the companies that are delivering on this promise. Awards may also help to generate greater public awareness of the latest and greatest in mobile services, entertainment etc. That’s why we find it disappointing that some prominent industry awards don’t share with the rest of us all those fabulously useful materials that are submitted with each entry. Assuming that their raison d’être is to promote the mobile business and the achievements of their members, mobiThinking would particularly encourage awards organized by industry associations, such as the Mobile Marketing Association’s MMA Global Awards and the Mobile Entertainment Association’s The Meffy Awards (Meffys) to publish summaries of the entries, videos, or, at least, links to each winner.

It’s clear that we aren’t alone in our love of case studies: when mobiThinking published the winners of the MMA Global Awards with links (with help of the winners) to the award-winning campaigns/mobile sites/casestudies, it received thousands of visitors. This has inspired us to do the same for all mobile awards in our Guide to mobile industry awards.

The guide includes broader awards focused on advertising or digital, such as The Webby Awards and Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, from which we have extracted the mobile-related campaigns – not an easy task with Cannes Lions, as mobile is dispersed across, or should we say integrated with, the various direct, media, cyber etc categories.

This guide is an ongoing project to which we will add all the awards of interest to mobile marketers. Each includes all entry details, and past winners and where they are not provided by the organizers we’re adding links and videos. So we’d appreciate it if award winners can send in links to case studies and videos to editor(at)mobiThinking.com.

How do you choose what awards to enter?

mobiThinking’s advice has always been to enter as many awards as possible, but as we published the profiles our recent Guide to mobile agencies, we found that there are far more industry awards than we anticipated. Many of the agencies profiled – see Mobext, BBH, Sponge and Ogilvy & Mather – have collected a smorgasbord of silverware for mobile campaigns over the past few years (click on the agency to read the profile). Take a look at the virtual awards cabinet at R/GA – profile coming soon – here to get an idea of the bewildering array of advertising, marketing, digital and mobile awards out there (this was such a great image that mobiThinking couldn’t resist pinching it for the awards-guide banner).

Each year, there are more and more players bidding for mobile entrants. These come from two angles…
1) The newcomers – new for 2010, for example, is the The Effective Mobile Marketing Awards (EMMAs) run by Mobile Marketing Magazine.
2) The old guard – though established in traditionally non-mobile businesses, these awards are extending their tentacles into mobile marketing/entertainment/Web. Mobile is beginning to play a significant role in all of the major advertising/marketing festivals. At Cannes Lions, we spotted and collated 10 mobile-related campaigns. Meanwhile the The Webby Awards is starting to take mobile Web very seriously, with nine mobile categories in 2010. The GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards has categories for mobile entertainment and mobile marketing on top of the awards you’d expect honoring operators and technology companies.

There are several considerations for choosing one award over another:
Kudos: what will give you more credibility – a Cannes Lion or an MMA Global Award?
Publicity: check the press section to see how much coverage the awards received last year. Look for awards with media partnerships – as well as those organised by media outlets – and journalists/bloggers on the jury, as this should secure press coverage from those involved. In-depth coverage, of course, requires access to details of the winning campaigns (rather than just a list) and the gold standard is set by Cannes Lions, which provides a detailed description of each entry – with brief, execution and results, plus a video if available. Others provide useful summaries and/or links and up to 2010, the GSMA Awards used to include comments from the judges.
Peer recognition: if the awards are organized by an industry body, e.g. MEF, MMA, GSMA, DMA, you should expect that the winners should be circulated to all members.
Participation: in an ideal world all entrants would be nominated by independent people, but that is only possible when entry is free. The next best thing is when the public can vote for campaigns, as demonstrated by the People’s Voice at the The Webby Awards.
Price – charges for entry vary considerably, from free Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards to over €1,350 (US $1744) for the most expensive category at Cannes Lions. Then there’s the cost of preparing your submission and the cost of the awards dinner if you make it to the finals.
Level of competition: newer awards are bound to attract fewer entrants, while awards with lots of mobile categories may also help thin the competition for each award.
Visibility: when there are huge number of winners, such as Cannes Lions, there’s a danger that your win will be lost in a sea of others.
Prizes: the assumption is that entrants will be happy with a trophy for the cabinet and a logo for the website. However Smaato is upping the ante, offering an introduction to venture capitalists and a booth (or share of a booth) at industry trade shows.

Let us know: what are the most important mobile awards for you? And to you award winners, please send in links to your case studies and videos. Comment below or email editor (at) mobiThinking.com.

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